He posted pictures of the plane cabin, in which oxygen masks can be seen hanging from the ceiling.

Witnesses told WSB-TV that travellers were told repeatedly “do not panic” by a flight attendant over the tannoy.

@Delta Flight 2353 God Bless the Captain and crew. Had an emergency midair from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale. Oxygen masks deployed and we descended quickly and we're diverted to Tampa. I texted my wife and dad I loved them. Told my mom I love her and hugged my son. @wsvn@cbs12pic.twitter.com/C9QcU9DbYV

“Obviously it’s a hectic moment so the passengers around me, a lot of people were kind of hyperventilating, breathing really hard,” said passenger Harris Dewoskin.

He said it was a “scary moment” and that “chaos ensued”.

“Life is fragile. There was a scary 60 to 90 seconds where we really didn’t know what was going on,” he added.

Flight tracking website Flight Aware shows the moment the aircraft suddenly dropped through the air: at around 38 minutes in, the plane’s altitude fell from 38,000ft to just over 10,000ft within the space of seven minutes.